TGIF

And the 100th post giveaway winner is.... Heidi! Thanks to all who left comments!

The stash count is up to 225 yards- here is where it stands so far:

• Batiks 26.6 yards
• Neutrals 89.4 yards
• Fall Fabrics 42 yards
• Black/Gray/Black & whites 25 yards
• Christmas 39 yards

My weekend goals:

• Put the borders on the pinwheel charity quilt
• Count and fold Brights and Novelties. This should be the biggest amount, as I'm starting with 2 tubs of brights and 2 of novelties, and that doesn't count Bugs and Foods that each have their own box. Also doesn't include the 100's of squares already cut and ready for "I Spy" quilts. They are in small tubs by size. Can you tell I like Brights and Novelties?
• Lunch and errands with DH on Saturday
• Do our taxes on Sunday
• Performer Products Managers Meeting for NTIF Sunday night. The Festival is in 1 week and I can't wait! It's one of the highlights of my year. This is my 5th year as a Volunteer and my 3rd year to be the Finance Manager in our booth.
• Edited to add- Gather and cut fabrics for Judy's latest stash busting quilt. Maybe even start sewing on it.

Hope y'all have a great weekend and do something quilty!

And It Begins...

Last night I counted Batiks and Neutrals (WOW, COC, beige, tans, etc.) This has already been a very eye opening yet exhilarating experience. I like the space saved after folding everything.

The Batik tub started like this-scraps and yardage jumbled together.

and 26.6 yards later, it looks like this....

The yardage is stacked on the left and the scraps are on the right. I am not including any scraps in yardage count, as my math skills are horrible and to add up all the inches would just boggle my mind.

The neutrals started as 1 large tub, 1 Avon box, and 1 small tub of scraps.

Now I have it down to all 89.4 yards folded into the tub

and the scraps are in the Avon box.

So the stash count is already at 106 yards and I've barely started. However, when I was folding the batiks I started designing a quilt in my head. Let's just say I have a lot of yardage of good watery blues...

I should note- I consider "scraps" to be anything smaller than a FQ, or strips less than 6 inches in width. I also realized that I'm gonna quit buying FQ's. If it's nice enough that I want some I'm going to get at least 1/2 yards. There are several batiks I wish I had more of and I'm not sure if the LQS still has them. I'm trying not to buy at this point anyway.

Next are the Fall Fabrics and Black & Whites...

Tackle it 2sday

I've been so busy this morning I almost forgot it's Tuesday! I already tackled several things this morning- did some laundry, ran some errands, and since I'm the musician on Sunday at church I picked my music.

What am I doing the rest of the day? You're not going to believe it. After spending several days looking for a fabric I know I have, and still not able to find it, I've decided to clean up and re-organize my stash again. I was reading Brenda's post about counting her stash and although I'm scared to see just how much I really have, I want to do it and see just how much is here. If I had to guess I would say there's probably about 500 yards. Scary, huh?!

Now there is no way I can keep this going non-stop, but I'm going to do it a little bit everyday. And I'm going to re-fold everything so I can see at a glance what I've got. Just for kicks I want to see how much of each color/theme I have too. Should be very interesting.

Since there are several upcoming non-quilty things coming up that will take me away from my sewing room, I'm setting a deadline to have this room totally re-done by March 31st. I'm sure I can do it in between sewing projects.

The non-quilty project for the day is to finish gathering all my medical and donation receipts so we can work on our taxes. I'm hoping to get something back and not have to pay.

So how is your Tuesday?

Celebrating 100! Celebrating Spring!

Well for some reason Blogger thinks I started posting in 2005, but I swear I didn't start till July 2007. As far as I'm concerned, this is my official 100th post!

I know that some of you are still experiencing Winter and getting snow. Here in North Texas, we are already experiencing Spring weather. They are forecasting 80's for later in the week.

My allergies are not happy when everything starts blooming, but there is one thing I love about spring- Texas Wildflowers.

I especially love our state flower- the Bluebonnet.

They usually start to bloom in mid to late March and are gone by mid May. Brides love to have their picture taken in fields of them, and if you drive down some of the major freeways you can see families pulled over to the side of the road taking pictures of their children in the fields of them too. I've never had my picture taken in them, but I actually hope to resolve that this spring. I want to take a road trip to find just the right spot.

Another one of my favorite things are fabrics by MODA. Leave it to them to come out with this gorgeous selection of fabrics- "Hill Country Spring".




For those of you that don't know, the "Hill Country" is central Texas, pretty much the area east of Austin and north of San Antonio. While North Texas is basically flat, and West Texas is basically desert, this area is hilly, lush, and green. There are many beautiful lakes and rivers.

To celebrate my 100th post I am giving away 2 charm packs of "Hill Country Spring"

There are 22 charms in each pack. Just enough to make yourself a nice table topper or a runner and some placemats. You will also recieve a set of my Criss-Cross Coasters made with Bluebonnet fabric from another Moda line a few years ago.To win this giveaway, leave a comment in this post before midnight, Thursday, 2/26. Tell me your favorite thing about Spring where you live. I will put your name in a pot and post the winner Friday morning. If you post a link in your blog about my giveaway and let me know I'll put your name in the pot twice.

Good Luck!

Ideas Please!

This is the charity quilt I've been working on. A couple of years ago a very nice lady gave bolts and bolts of fabric to our little sewing group to be used for charity quilts. She owns a quilt shop in one of the small towns southeast of Dallas. We split up a bunch of the fabrics and I came home with a couple of yards of the pink/hearts print.

I started cutting this while watching President Obama's Inauguration. I've worked on it a little in my spare time.

I can't decide what colors to use in the border. I have the bright pink fabric that is the same as the teal, yellow, and purple, and am thinking it needs to be the outer border. I was thinking yellow as the inner border, but is that too much yellow? With adding borders all around, it will be 60 inches square.

The nice thing is I have enough of the print left to make another top. I want to start on it this week but am not sure what pattern I want to do. I don't want to do more pinwheels. Any easy suggestions? I do have a lot more of the yellow and the purple but not much of the teal and I really don't want to go shopping since I'm trying to use up stash.

I'm a Geek after all!

If you've been following my blog lately you know that we've had computer issues. I thought for sure we'd somehow fried our USB ports. The printer and camera dock weren't working and I had tried all sorts of things, including calling Toshiba support. They told me I needed a new motherboard, which meant we might as well get a new laptop.

Well, I'm still not sure what I did but after clicking on a few things and deleting a few things, they work again! Hallelujah! It really sucked not being able to print my EQ patterns or download pictures to show off.

So here are a few things I've been working on.

****Eileen, if you want to be surprised, DON'T LOOK any further!****

Here are pictures of the Blue & White top I finished with Eileen's blocks.



She sent 13 blocks. When I saw this star block, I knew that I wanted to make it the center square. I wasn't sure about the borders around it, so thanks tirane for your great idea.








Then I played around with what I wanted to do for the outer borders. I finally decided on scrappy flying geese. I've grown to love pieced borders although I don't like tearing all the papers off (I paper piece everything).

I showed this top to my friend/boss Helle and she loved it. I am thinking of doing the same layout with another group of blocks.

I had a lot of fun putting this together. I hope she likes it.

It turned out 72 inches square. Yep, I'm gonna use this layout again. I can see having a few more blocks around a center so that it's 90 inches. Perfect for a queen bed.

Stash Report, Week 8

Fabric Added this Week: 6 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date: 14.125 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 15 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date: 34 1/2 yards

I went to get February's BOM and bought a 2 yard piece of COC and 3 yards of Brown TOT. Also picked up several remnant pieces.

I sent the last box of fabrics I didn't want anymore to Cissie and made some blocks for a swap on QATW.

I'm still using more than I've bought, so I'm doing great!

Tackle It 2sday

Unfortuntely I had to come into work early, so today's projects are this-

While I'm here at work I'm going to tackle the growing stack of papers that need to be filed. There are 3 of us that work this office and none of us like filing. But it needs to be done and I'm bored.

Tonight at home I'll continue cutting pink, brown, and cream fabrics. I'm working on 2 projects at once- a controlled scrappy rail fence, and wonky stars ala Bonnie Hunter to accompany the sampler. Both should be very cute when they are done.

I also need to finish taking the papers off Eileen's top so I can get it in the mail to her tomorrow.

What are you doing with your 2sday?

Stash Report, Week 7

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date: 8.125 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 4 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date: 19 1/2 yards

I used about 2 yards in finishing Eileen's Blue & White top and gave away 2 1/2 yards to someone.

I am on a roll again and getting a lot done. Should have a big report next week. Hopefully my co-workers are well now and I won't get stuck working 10 hour days this week.

Inspiration

Last spring when we went to NYC and Boston I drug David along to lots of museums. And I took a lot of pictures. His remark was always "You can look at that online". It's not the same as seeing it in person though.
I can say "I was there".

Of course I took pics of my favorites..Monet, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, O'Keefe, Pollack, etc.

But there were a few that I took that now I wish I had written down the artists name and title of the piece. Most of these caught my eye as future quilt ideas.
I did get the name and title of this one. It is "Bed" by Robert Rauschenberg. He framed a pillow, sheet, and quilt, then scribbled on them and splashed them with paint. I liked the Courthouse Step and wondered how old they were. Left me wondering who made the quilt and if they knew it would one day be hanging at the MoMA.



This gave me ideas for paper pieced diamonds or butterflies. The colors are a lot more vivid in person.

and this one is so bright and wild that of course I love it.

And this one is from a Seminole Indian's dress.
Doesn't it remind you of a quilt block?

The Visitors Center in Salem, MA has tile was laid out like a 9-patch quilt. I took pictures but can't find them. They may not have gotten downloaded. If I can recover them I'll post those too. Gray background with squares of navy, teal, rust, gold, and hunter green. Isn't it funny where we find inspiration sometimes?!

An Artists Pallette, or where is that Mauvy, peachy pink?

Saturday was our monthly Sit & Sew at tirane's house. She has a stash to die for. Every possible color folded and stacked nice and neat on wooden shelves. She was working with a panel that had very subdued pastel shades. She pulled fabrics from her stash that complimented it nicely even though they were all from different manufacturers. Fabrics that I never would have thought about using together. But she has just the knack for making things work. Then she realized she needed a pink. Went back to her stash and pulled just the right pink the first time. Wow. She doesn't believe in "stash busting", because as she says, your stash is your pallette. Had that been a panel in my stash, I would have had nothing to work with it. I'd have given up and given it away.

I thought about a pink that I had that would have worked nicely with her fabrics but then realized I'd given it away in my recent purging.

Then I got to thinking about what is left in my stash. As far as colors go, I have lots of blues, greens, reds, and pinks. Very little brown, yellow, orange, or purple, which is strange because it's my favorite color. But within each color I am limited in certain shades. Most of my fabrics lean towards the bright side. I do have some deep rich hunter greens and some navy blue. But if someone asked me to make a baby quilt in pastels, it would be an excuse to go shopping. I have a growing selection of 30's prints, batiks, Black & Whites, and my novelty selection is extensive..every "thing" under the sun, but that's a post for another day.

What colors dominate your stash? Are there colors you're lacking? Have you given something away only to wish you hadn't? Do you purge fabrics? Stash bust? or are you like my friend and always have just the right shade of mauve pink?

Stash Report, Week 6, 2009

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date: 8.125 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date: 15 yards

Nothing in, but nothing out this week.

However I am happy to report that my recent slump is over. I spent Saturday cutting scraps at tirane's house and continued the cutting therapy here when I got home. I have nice stacks of charms and strips to use in finishing some projects. Will get some pics posted soon.

Yesterday I worked on Eileen's Blue & White top. It's coming along nicely and I hope to get it mailed to her by the end of the week. Need to take some pics of the progress on it too.

Tackle it 2sday

I have been feeling a bit down in the dumps lately and haven't done a whole lot of sewing. I seem to go through this every winter. I don't know what it is. Last year I was motivated to sew as much as possible in the hopes of making $$$ and since deciding that I won't do that craft fair again, I don't seem to have something to challenge me. I do have the tubs of UFO's, but I don't seem inspired to work on any of them. At least not lately.

I do need to work on Eileen's Blue & White top. We did a swap of blocks to make each other a top and funny thing is we sent each other Blue & White blocks. I laughed out loud when I got her blocks. She made me this lovely top with mine...



For today's quilty "tackle" I will work on hers. I was having a really hard time deciding on what to do for the outer border but now I have a plan. I hope she likes it.

And I think for today's non-quilty tackle I'm going to go get a perm. I've been needing a new one, as the one I got in October grew out fairly quickly. That should help me feel better.

BTW, my 100th post is coming really soon and I'm thinking about a giveaway. Not sure yet what it will be but be on the lookout!

Stash Report, Week 5, 2009

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date: 8.125 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 1 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date: 15 yards

Pretty boring week here. Had a cold I was getting over and didn't feel like doing too much. I did work on some scrappy blocks. We also had an ice storm for several days so I didn't get out and shop.

I have several things on my plate for this week so I should be able to bust a bunch of stash.